FOREST TREES. 83

and does not leadily absorb water. In these respects, hemlock resembles it most.

Both red cedar (juniperas V irginiana) and white cedar (cupressus thyoides) are met with in British America, but not in abundance. The former is found only in Upper Canada, the latter grows in the lower provinces. The largest trees that I have seen, about three feet in diameter, were on the banks of Bona— venture river, in the district of Gaspe, at which place the Acadian French use the white cedar, in preference to other wood, for house and ship—building.

The common juniper, which yields the berry used in the arts, and which takes two years in ripening, is found in most cold situations, where other trees seldom grow. A creeping variety of fir, called, in America, ground spruce, producing a delicious red berry, and on which cattle delight to browse, grows in many places in great plenty. It differs in its nature from all other varieties of firs, inasmuch as it thrives only in fertile soils.

The oak in England claims the precedence of all other trees ; but not so in America. The people of the United States boast much, it is true, of the dura- bility and excellence of their white oak (quercus alba.) It is certainly a tough, durable wood, and pro- bably equal to the greater part of the oak now out down annually in Great Britain; but no more in firmness and durability to be compared to the “ un— wedgeable and gnarled oak of England,” than sand- stone is to granite. The wood growing in the south-